


Touch Dominance

by Tesserae



Series: Table Porn [1]
Category: SGA - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-27
Updated: 2006-08-08
Packaged: 2017-10-06 15:47:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tesserae/pseuds/Tesserae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>A/N: This was written for the lovely <a href="http://yin-again.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://yin-again.livejournal.com/"><b>yin_again</b></a>'s birthday and is a remix of her story <a href="http://jinjurly.com/yin/devilyou.htm">Devil You Know</a>, offered up with much love and hopefully, enough commas. Many weeks later, she offered to beta it for me, so this is the edited version.</p><p>No spoilers; written mid-season 2 and set post-series</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yin_again](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=yin_again).



> A/N: This was written for the lovely [](http://yin-again.livejournal.com/profile)[**yin_again**](http://yin-again.livejournal.com/)'s birthday and is a remix of her story [Devil You Know](http://jinjurly.com/yin/devilyou.htm), offered up with much love and hopefully, enough commas. Many weeks later, she offered to beta it for me, so this is the edited version.
> 
> No spoilers; written mid-season 2 and set post-series

For all that he liked to fly and he liked to shoot, John wasn't a particularly _visual_ guy. What he liked about flying the jumpers was the way they put speed and space directly into his hands without the noise and vibration of an F-15, and without the instruments that sometimes made him feel like he was watching an animated database calculate his tax refund.

When he got back to Earth he bought the biggest pickup truck he could find, and an old Jaguar E-type. The truck had cruise control and GPS and a stereo system he needed an engineer from work to program, and driving it felt almost like flying a jumper. The E-type had five speeds and a manual choke, and when he drove it up the coast the steering wheel transmitted so much vibration into his hands that his shoulders hurt when he finally pulled over in Big Sur and climbed out. He liked that better, maybe because driving the Jag was _nothing_ like flying.

What he liked about shooting was mostly that he was very, very good at it. Being good at it had gotten them all through the gate one last time, five minutes ahead of a group of very large people with even larger guns, and about twenty minutes before Rodney would have bled out. (According to Carson, who told him this much, much later.) And that was when John had said, _enough_.

Surprisingly, it worked. It worked on JPL, which came through with a job offer, and on the Los Angeles real estate market, which coughed up a house on Mount Washington with a view of downtown. It was still working when he got through to Rodney at his sister's in Canada, and at the airport, where Rodney was the first person to walk off the plane ("First class, nitwit. What, are you still flying coach?"), and didn't flinch when John wrapped his arms around him and held on for a little too long. It worked all the way up to the moment he opened the door to show the place to Rodney for the first time, and realized two things: one was that he was glad he'd asked for chopsticks at the takeout place. The second was that he didn't have any furniture.

"Shit, Sheppard."

"Yeah."

They ended up in the truck that night, eating green curry and drinking Tsing Tao. After the first six-pack, downtown Los Angeles still didn't look like Atlantis, even with Rodney beside him waving his arms around and ranting about the stupidity of colleagues he hadn't even met. So John did what he'd wanted to do since about the first week in Atlantis: he captured Rodney's hands in his own, and waited until the stillness told him he had all of Rodney's attention.

Then he pulled Rodney toward him and kissed him.

Rodney opened his mouth and just _ fell_ into the kiss, twining his strong fingers into John's and grinning happily into his mouth. Which made John feel almost the way he did flying the jumpers, with Atlantis herself stretched out along his arms and that bone-deep connection thrumming through him. But this was Rodney, and the night air smelled of flowers, not the sea, and John could think of all kinds of _other_things he wanted those hands to be doing.

John was really more of a hands-on guy, after all.

The back of the truck was just about as uncomfortable as it looked, even with John's sleeping bag under them. They didn't get to much of John's list that night, just the parts that involved Rodney's mouth on his, and his mouth on Rodney's dick, and Rodney's big hands wrapped around his belly and his cock, stroking him hard and fast till he came, in a white flash of light that he realized later was a police helicopter doing a yard-by-yard.

*

Now, on the rare days when the offshore flow brought the smell of the sea all the way inland, he headed out to the shop he had set up in the garage and took heavy power tools to impossibly expensive pieces of oak. His first project was bookshelves, which Rodney rapidly filled with books that John was secretly reading. His second was a dining room table. Rodney took up a lot of space at dinner, and because John loved to watch him waving his hands around when he talked but hated cleaning up broken wine glasses, he was making a really big table.

A really big, _sturdy_ table, because sometimes they stopped for takeout and stayed up talking past midnight, in the room at the back of the house with the big windows that John thought would make a great dining room. The card table they were using was too small, but John had this fantasy of leaning over a real table, Rodney - his big hands gripping his hips hard enough to leave bruises - fucking him into the lights of the city sprawled out below them.

*

The day he finished the table's base he walked back into the house to find Rodney at the kitchen sink, up to his elbows in soapsuds. There were easily a dozen shopping bags around him on the floor and he was humming. As John watched, he lifted a white plate with a fine gold rim out of the bubbles, gently rinsed it off, and set it in the drainer.

John had never seen this plate before. "What are you doing?"

Rodney turned around and gave him a crooked grin. "I – ah, see, well, we've been eating off that crappy melamine from the 99 Cent store, and I think it's giving me a canker, see, here –" he opened his mouth and pointed, and John obediently peered in, but there was nothing there that he could see – "so, I bought dishes."

"Dishes."

"And wine glasses, and better forks, and candles - I thought, well, that table you're building, it's gonna need…" and when Rodney's voice trailed off a bit John looked up, just as the happy pride on Rodney's face started shifting into embarrassment. He leaned over the bags and kissed him, still a little bit surprised at how soft Rodney's lips were, how perfectly that wide mouth fit against his own.

John sucked Rodney's lower lip into his mouth, and then stepped closer, pinning Rodney against the counter, and reached around him to turn off the water. Rodney grinned at him and grabbed his hips with wet, soapy hands, and when John yelped, dragged him up against his erection.

"Your hands are wet."

"So they are," Rodney said, and slid them underneath John's t-shirt and into the hollow at the base of his spine. John arched against him, bringing their cocks together and shuddering at the jolt of pleasure that shot through him. Rodney slid his tongue into John's mouth and moaned around it, kissing him until they both pulled away for air.

"So, dishes," John said, a little breathlessly.

Rodney nodded. "Nice ones."

"And candles."

Rodney turned pink again. "Well, see, I have this fantasy …" John felt himself grinning.

"Yeah, me too."

 

(edited and re-posted, 8/06)


	2. While You Were Dreaming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's always wondered if he could take Rodney all the way to orgasm without waking him up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in California, post-series. Deals with issues of consent.

There were birds, lots of them, in the jacaranda tree outside their bedroom, and so John's days always started a little earlier than he liked. He envied Rodney's ability to sleep through any kind of noise or disturbance, even – occasionally – his alarm clock or John's sleep-warmed hands on his ass.

He'd always wondered if he could take Rodney all the way to orgasm without waking him up. The last time he tried, Rodney had gotten a cramp just as John was easing his thighs apart, woken up with a yell, and kicked John hard enough to leave a bruise. After that, John mastered the art of rolling over _ loudly_ before trying to kiss Rodney awake.

But only the brave got to wear as many medals as John Sheppard did when he put on his dress uniform, and if the Air Force taught him anything, it was that great reward merited great risk. So, early one morning, hearing the whuffing sound that Rodney only made when he was deeply asleep, he pushed up on one elbow and peered over Rodney's back.

Rodney was, as he thought, dead to the world, his face pillow-creased and shiny, the hair around his ears damp and curly and his eyes moving under their lids. One hand was wedged damply under his cheek and he smelled faintly of Thai food. John caught his breath, achingly hard and overcome by tenderness, feelings that struck him, as they always did, as improbable. When did his fantasy life lose all of its long-legged blondes and start featuring one irritable, chronically sleep-deprived scientist – a scientist who _ drooled_, to make matters worse?

He didn't know the answer to that. Sometime back on Atlantis, probably, when they were all so busy trying to simply survive that there wasn't much time for anything but the occasional visit to a fantasy blonde. Certainly the friendship had started there, that and the creeping awareness that, in spite of the kind of reckless arrogance that occasionally meant they lost a solar system (or most of one, anyways), he was safe in Rodney's keeping. At the time, it was enough. But somewhere between "Move to Los Angeles? Sure, why not?" and hauling what felt like dozens of boxes of Rodney's books into the spare room, he realized that the combination of _Rodney_ and _safe_ had become all he wanted.

As his dick kept trying to tell him, and he really needed to get this started before it was the sound of _John's_ orgasm that woke Rodney up.

Moving slowly, John nudged the sheets off both of them, exposing Rodney's heavy shoulders and the long line of his back, and leaned down to press his mouth into the bend of Rodney's knee. Using just his lips, enjoying the rough drag of hair against his mouth, he kissed his way slowly up the inside of one leg while easing the other forward, feeling the muscles tighten under the cool skin of Rodney's leg. Higher up, in the hollow behind the tendons in his groin, Rodney was was warm, and smelled of sleep and sweat and musk, and John could feel him starting to move under his hands as he licked and kissed and slowly, slowly, pressed his thighs apart.

(None of the fantasy blondes had had freckles or back hair. But none of them had Rodney's surprisingly muscular ass, or thighs strong enough to lift John off the bed when they fucked, or would have felt nearly as good when John was inside them. He was entirely certain of this.)

Moving carefully, John shifted so that he was kneeling between Rodney's thighs and dropped his head back down, touching his tongue to the smooth skin of Rodney's perineum and sweeping it up toward his hole, and reached down with one hand to cup the heavy weight of his balls. Awake, Rodney loved this; asleep, he murmured softly and spread his legs even wider, rolling his hips into the sheets beneath him, and John could feel him clenching and releasing as he worked his tongue around and into the sensitive muscle. As Rodney relaxed and let him in, he grasped Rodney's cock, sliding his palm through the moisture on the head, tightening his grip, feeling the skin slip as the shaft swelled in his hand.

John would never admit it, but he sometimes found Rodney's responsiveness more arousing than his own – taking Rodney, even asleep, to the point of sweating and moaning and _moving_ with his mouth and his hands sent pleasure fizzing up his spine, and drew his balls up against his body. Panting harshly, he pulled back, fighting the urge to just grind his hips into the space between Rodney's thighs and come already, and rested his forehead on Rodney's lower back.

"Jesus fuck, Sheppard, don't stop now!" Rodney's voice was husky with sleep and need and John hauled him up onto all fours before reaching over and pulling a condom out of the nightstand drawer. Squeeze of lube onto his fingers and his hands were back on Rodney's ass, circling and pressing until Rodney was shaking and thrusting back onto his hand, and John wasn't sure how long this was going to last for either of them when he finally guided his cock into Rodney's ass and began to move.

"John, John, John, _John_," he heard, and he gripped Rodney's cock again just as Rodney spasmed around him and came in a rush over his hand, crashing John into the orgasm he'd been fighting off and sending them both rolling off the bed.

**

"Ow," he heard, but there wasn't any heat in it, so John figured he hadn't caused any serious injuries. Gingerly, he lifted his head and surveyed the damage.

He, Rodney, both pillows and what appeared to be at least part of a sheet were on the side of the bed closest to the French doors that led out to the deck. Rodney was wrapped around him, head resting on his shoulder and one hand flat on John's stomach, fingers tangling in the fine dark hair.

"You okay?" John asked. "That was a bit – I'm sorry."

Rodney pushed himself up with the hand on John's belly and stared at him. John grunted and stared back.

"That was - what were you trying to do?"

John felt his ears turning red. "Well," he said. "It's – it's complicated."

Rodney narrowed his eyes and watched as the blush spread across John's face, down his neck and onto his chest. "This is some kind of a _thing_ for you, isn't it?"

Oh, perfect. John let his head drop back onto the floor with an audible _thunk_. "No," he said. "Yes." He trailed off, unable to come up with the words to explain what he'd been trying to do. Or why it seemed like such a good idea at the time. "It's – ".

"Yeah, I know. Complicated." Rodney untangled himself and sat up, his back half-turned. His shoulders were tense, and when he put a hand down to lever himself up, John knew he needed to give him something more.

He put his hand over Rodney's, and laced their fingers together. Rodney lifted his chin, and looked toward the French doors.

"Look. I just – you sleep so soundly, and – "

"And what? You find that funny?"

"No. It's – I, it makes me – "

"Want to throw me out of bed? Or what – you want to fuck me while I'm unconscious? So you can pretend I'm – what, John? _What_?"

Rodney scrambled to his feet, and John knew, _he knew_, that McKay was perfectly capable of walking out the front door if he didn't get it right in the next ten seconds. He stood up fast and wrapped his arms around Rodney, holding him hard against his chest, and talked even faster.

"Rodney, _no_. Don't think for a minute that there's _anyone_ else…" he trailed off, and took a deep breath. Outside, the mockingbird was screaming at something in the yard. "Waking you up like this - it makes me hot, okay, and it makes want to see how far I can get before you wake up, because I know you're going to, and I didn't always know that on Atlantis."

He dropped his head onto Rodney's shoulder and tightened his arms, but he didn't let go until he heard Rodney say "Ow, let go, _breathing_ here," in his "Moron!" voice, and then John knew he'd managed to both fuck it up and save the day, all in the blink of an eye. Some things never changed.

As Rodney pushed him back onto the bed, he glanced over at the doors leading to the deck. From the edge of the rug there was at least four feet to spare, but he made a mental note to move the bed into the opposite corner. And to make sure there was safety glass in the doors, just in case. He was still convinced that he could get Rodney off without waking him up. Just not this week.

Besides, he had a table to finish.

(edited and re-posted, 8/06)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to [](http://yin-again.livejournal.com/profile)[**yin_again**](http://yin-again.livejournal.com/) for beta-reading this in the run-up to WriterCon!


	3. Untitled Table Porn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today's the day the table goes in.

In the end he'd gone with the quarter-sawn oak panels for the tabletop. He put the black walnut aside, thinking that he could build a desk for Rodney once they – well, _ he_ \- finished the attic. And besides, he liked the color and the stripy grain of the oak. It would be perfect in the room, in front of the big windows overlooking downtown Los Angeles.

The tabletop was nearly nine feet long and four across, smooth as silk after he'd worked his way up to 300-grit corundum sandpaper and coated it with spar varnish. To support the top, he'd modified the center brace design and cut heavier mortises, a modification he hoped would give it greater stability as well. All this meant, of course, that even in pieces, the thing was massively heavy. He was going to need help getting it out of the garage and into the dining room.

But not from Rodney, even in a purely supervisory capacity.

Rodney was currently fast asleep, his head pillowed on John's chest and his leg draped over John's left thigh. One hand curved around his hipbone; the other was wedged under his cheek, and had been drooled on, something John found alarmingly endearing.

He ran an experimental hand down Rodney's back and splayed his fingers over the curve of his lower back. Rodney murmured softly and rolled his hips into John's. When his lips found John's nipple, and John realized they were both getting hard – again – he gave up on the idea of getting the table set up in time for breakfast. Lunch, maybe.

Rodney brought his hand up to his mouth and licked the palm, and reached down to grip the head of John's cock. John gasped and arched into his touch, feeling himself harden and lengthen as Rodney's hand began to move, long slow strokes on his shaft, the rhythm one beat behind where he needed it to be.

He thrust into Rodney's fist - _ harder, faster, NOW_ \- and bit back a groan of frustration as Rodney slowed it down further, gripping him hard, making John fuck his hand as his mouth found the spot at the base of John's neck that always made him moan. When he shifted up to take John's mouth, John rolled to face him, grabbed the back of his head and pulled him closer for a fierce and sloppy kiss, and rolled again, landing with his legs on either side of Rodney's hips and their erections pressed together. He thrust hard, surprising a groan from Rodney, and pulled away to look down.

Rodney looked utterly debauched, his face and chest flushed red, his eyes wide and glassy. He was breathing hard through a grin that managed to be smug and awestruck simultaneously, and John felt pretty awed himself at the fact that _he_ was apparently the only being in two galaxies capable of rendering Rodney mute. John grinned in response, and then, with great deliberation, touched his forefinger to the hollow at the base of Rodney's throat, and drew in slowly down his chest, feeling the sheen of sweat slick its passage through the soft hair on Rodney's surprisingly broad and well-defined chest.

Rodney drew in his breath and shuddered, and began to make a noise John wasn't sure he'd ever heard before. He rocked back on his heels and kept going, tracing over Rodney's navel and slowing as he reached the point where the hair on his belly started to curl and coarsen, and Rodney's noises went up in pitch.

Well, maybe not so much _mute_ as _incoherent_, then. John could feel "smug" showing on his own face.

John reached the base of Rodney's cock and the noises resolved themselves into "Fuck, John, _fuck_, oh, no, you – fuck," and John awarded himself another point before reaching down and taking both their cocks in his hand and stroking once, twice, three times; and then as he leaned in to kiss Rodney they both came, hard, stars behind his tightly-closed eyes and Rodney panting messy noises into his mouth.

::

John rolled back onto the bed, letting the intense sensations of _mouth_ and _skin_ and _hands_ fade while he regained his ability to breathe. He cracked open one eye to check on Rodney, and was greeted by the bluest gaze he had ever seen, holding an expression that made him feel as if he'd just raised Atlantis by force of will alone. Rodney brought a hand up and cupped John's jaw with infinite tenderness.

John could feel his own smile spread to his entire face.

Rodney leaned in and placed a chaste kiss at the side of his mouth. John turned his head, leaning into the kiss, but Rodney pulled away. He lifted one eyebrow, puzzled.

Rodney hauled himself up, propped a hand under his ear and looked down at John. "Oh, no, you don't. You have a table to install and you're not going to lure me into letting you put it off another week."

John lifted the other eyebrow.

"Don't give me that look, I've already gone shopping."

"Shopping?"

Rodney fixed his eyes on John's chest and started to turn faintly pink. He didn't say anything. John stared at him for a moment.

"Never mind," Rodney said, lifting his chin. "Just – get that table installed before I have to feed the steak to the cat, okay?"

"We don't have a cat, Rodney."

"Yes, well, you know what I mean." He still wouldn't meet John's eyes, which meant that whatever it was, it was something big. Normally Rodney aimed for wide-eyed innocence when his goal was misdirection. John arched an eyebrow, but Rodney just snorted.

John threw him a wounded look. "Don't I get my afterglow, _dear_?"

Rodney grabbed his head and manhandled him into a kiss, using his tongue to open John's mouth and sucking on John's lower lip strongly enough that he began to move his cock lazily against Rodney's again. Then, with some reluctance (John hoped), Rodney let him go.

He sat up. "Okay, okay, I get it, McKay. _Table_."

"Yes, table." But Rodney was still pink. John suddenly remembered. _Well, see, I have this fantasy_.

_Yeah_ he'd said. _Me too_.

Looked like he was about to find out what Rodney's fantasy looked like first. He thought for a moment about all that brainpower being devoted to the task of getting him, John Sheppard, off. In several creative ways, if he knew his Rodney.

His cock stirred. He could live with that.


	4. In Words This Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The table finally goes in, and proves to be a good solid surface.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deals with issues of consent.

"Okay, on my count…one…two…THREE." John could feel the solid weight of the oak in his thighs and his arms, and checked to make sure his helper wasn't using his back to lift. So far, so good - the guy didn't speak much English, but he was watching John carefully and mirroring his movements, lifting smoothly when John did.

The tabletop settled onto its base. Crouching down, John eyed its position, motioned to German to help him shift it, and then pulled it toward himself. When he felt the center support brace lock into place against its underside, he nodded, and broke into a grin.

German smiled back at him. "Done?" he asked.

"Yeah," John replied. "I need to lock it down, but I can do that myself. Want a beer?" Without waiting for an answer, he headed into the kitchen and snagged two bottles out of the refrigerator. The counters were suspiciously clean. Whatever Rodney was planning for dinner, he hadn't left any clues – or samples – lying out for John to find.

Back in the dining room, he opened both bottles and handed one to German, who drained it and handed it back to him. John blinked.

"Well. Forty bucks okay?"

German nodded, and John reached for his wallet. "Come on – I'll take you back down the hill."

Another nod, and John fished his keys out of his pocket. Putting his untouched beer back in the fridge, he led German back out to the truck. It was late in the day, but not that late – maybe the guy had another job, or a date. John didn't blame him for not wanting to stand around any longer than necessary. He had other plans for the evening as well.

::

The sun was still high when he got back, but the light had changed, warming the terracotta of the west-facing walls to a darker red and deepening the shadows under the oak tree in the front yard. Against the fence a wiry old cactus was on the verge of blooming, and a hummingbird darted in and out of the soft purple sage that grew in front of the porch.

John put his hand on the railing and looked up at his - _ their_ \- house. The light was on in the kitchen, and he could hear music coming from the open window, Alicia de Larrocha, he thought, Rodney's new CD. He couldn't see Rodney but he knew he was there, drinking Canadian beer and indulging in a little air-conducting like that guy on MASH whose name John could never remember.

Later, there would be steaks, and a bottle of good red wine. Right now, there was Mozart, and the fragrance of the garden around him in the late afternoon light, and for the moment, it was all John could do to breathe around the lump in his throat. He slid down onto the stairs to wait for the music to stop.

Besides, Rodney hated getting caught at air-conducting.

::

"Hey." A hand closed on his shoulder and strong fingers stroked up over his collarbone. John turned into the touch and Rodney sat down, leaning companionably against him. He smelled faintly of garlic.

"Pretty evening," John said.

Rodney looked around and then back at John, nodding. "Yes. So." He cleared his throat and started again, sounding slightly hesitant. "Are you, ah, are you ready to barbecue the steaks?"

John nudged him with his shoulder and tried to look offended. "How come I have to be the husband?" he asked.

Rodney shifted and looked down at his bare feet. "It's, well, I – "

John nudged him again. "God, you're easy."

"No, I'm – " Rodney protested, and then gave up, grinning crookedly. "Yeah, I guess I am. But don't tell my students, please."

There was a smear of olive oil on Rodney's forehead. John reached up and brushed at it with his thumb, then slid his hand down to cup Rodney's jaw. Leaning in, touching their lips together, he tasted red wine and oregano, and something else he couldn't quite identify. That Rodney could cook had been a surprise – no one who liked airline food should have been able to handle a dry spice rub. Of course, Rodney insisted that, unlike most of the idiots he worked with, he could follow instructions. John thought he had a point there; not the one he'd intended to make, but he was pretty sure that Martha Stewart wouldn't have appreciated some of the names Rodney called her when the recipes didn't work.

"I like this," Rodney murmured.

"What?" John asked.

"This," Rodney said, one arm sweeping around to indicate the yard, the house, the porch, John himself. "This," he said again, pressing a soft kiss onto John's lips. "The idea that I can sit here on our front porch and make out with you like a teenager and nobody thinks it's anything but _cute_ – although, my god, the idea that anybody would think I'm cute - " he trailed off, clearly upset.

John nodded solemnly. "Horrifying, I know."

Rodney smacked him before continuing. "I have this beautiful dinner ready for you. And I want to open a bottle of wine, and maybe another one, and toss the salad while you shower – although, god knows – " he bent his head and touched his tongue to the hollow at the base of John's throat, " – I'd be just as happy if you didn't, you're even _hotter_ when you're sweaty. How do you do that?"

John grinned. Food, wine – maybe they'd get to his fantasy scenario as well, if Rodney's involved mainly dinner.

Rodney rolled on, his cheeks pink, his eyes serious under their straight brows.

" – and then stand out on the deck while you barbecue steaks and kiss you and wave to the neighbors and maybe invite them over to have a glass of wine and – "

John raised his eyebrows. "You want us to have sex with the neighbors?"

"No! I want us to – "

"Have sex while they watch?"

"No! Yes!" Rodney threw himself back onto the porch and covered his face with both arms. "Oh, god." His chin, his neck and the lobes of his ears – which were all John could see - were bright red. John stood up, trying manfully to suppress the smile that pulled at his lips.

"Rodney? Which neighbors, exactly?"

"Kill me now," Rodney answered, his voice faint. "It'd be a kindness, really, and I'm sure somebody would take you in."

John laughed. Rodney moaned.

"McKay. Up." John reached down and grabbed his hand, tugging him to his feet and pushing him into the house. Pointing Rodney toward the kitchen, he added helpfully, "You know, you're gonna have to make more salad if we're fucking the neighbors tonight."

::

John tightened the last bolt holding the tabletop to its base and slid out from underneath it. He brushed his hands off on his jeans and reached out to run his fingers over the wood. It was beautiful, no question there: quarter-sawn oak panels lifted into grace by the table's massive legs and the clean lines of the crossbeams, by the chatoyant gleam of the wood itself, sleek and golden.

"Rodney."

"Yes, what?"

"Come here."

"Please don't quote - _ oh_."

Rodney put the wine bottle and the glasses he'd been carrying down on the sideboard and walked over to where John stood, slouching against the table, thumbs hooked – casually, he hoped – into the pockets of his jeans.

"It's beautiful."

"You're not looking at the table," John protested.

"I looked at it earlier," Rodney answered, meeting his eyes only briefly before looking over his shoulder at the window behind them.

John decided to try distraction. "I like this too, you know," he said. He slid his hands around Rodney's hips and tried to pull him closer, wanting him to know that he was half-hard already. But Rodney flinched, stepping back.

John squinted at him, confused. "What?" he asked.

"What what?"

John narrowed his eyes. "That's not going to work," he said. "Talk to me."

Abruptly, Rodney pulled away and walked around the table to face the window, crossing his arms high on his chest.

"Why have you been trying to fuck me while I'm asleep?" he asked.

The air left John's lungs as if he'd been hit. He braced himself on the table, his hands flat, and counted to ten and then twenty, trying to catch his breath. When he finally looked up, he could see Rodney's face reflected in the window, his mouth a diagonal slash.

He counted another ten for good measure before opening his mouth to speak. "I explained all this to you," he said softly. "It's a turn-on for me –"

"Well, it isn't for me." Rodney's voice was flat.

"Look, Rodney – "

He pivoted to face John, hands clenched into fists under his arms. "No, dammit, you look! I told you I didn't like that, and you did it _ again_!"

John curled his own hands into fists. "It felt like you liked it this morning!" he yelled.

"Well, maybe I did!" Rodney yelled back. They stared at each other for a long moment, and then Rodney dropped his arms and turned back to the window. "Maybe I did, John," he whispered, sounding defeated. "Because, god, it's _you_, and I - you always –"

He trailed off, and John took a step toward him. Rodney was _never_ at a loss for words.

"Rodney…" he started to say, but Rodney waved a hand at him.

"It's _afterwards_ that – listen to me, we've been here in L.A. too long, I'm losing IQ points as we speak!" He dropped his forehead onto the glass. John walked over and wrapped his arms around Rodney's waist, leaning into him.

"Come on, I know we're guys, but you gotta talk to me here," he murmured into Rodney's neck.

"I know." Rodney took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Below them, lights were coming on in the canyon. "I think – I think it's that –" he made a frustrated noise, and then continued in a rush, "- it feels like you're fucking somebody else when you start when I'm asleep."

John dropped his arms and stepped back. "Who?" he demanded.

"What?"

"Who? Who else would I – goddammit, McKay!" He grabbed Rodney by the shoulders and turned him around. "Who?"

"Somebody – anybody!" Rodney shook his hands off and poked him in the chest. "Don't you see – anybody who's not me! If I'm asleep I'm not really there!"

John dropped his hands, shocked. He had suspected that it wasn't entirely clear – but he didn't know how to tell Rodney that the feeling of going to sleep in his arms, of waking with Rodney warm and heavy in his, was something too big for words, at least for the ones John had.

In the plans for the table, though, he found the language he needed. Here, it would say, this is _ours_, this is _solid_, we will have this our whole lives. He'd picked out and cut each board by hand, running careful fingers over each surface, and spent weeks in the garage with the tools and the noise and the sawdust, wanting it to be everything his father's offerings of grocery store roses and Hallmark cards hadn't been. Although the card would have said it more clearly, he thought, looking at Rodney's pale, distressed face and knowing that he had to fix something, _again_, that he didn't understand breaking.

Of course, the card would just have said it with words.

He walked over to the switch by the door and switched on the light fixture over the table, turning it down till its light was barely on, gold and sepia through the mica shade. He put his hands back on Rodney's shoulders, this time gently, cupping his hands around them and turning him to face the window.

"What do you see?" he asked.

"I see – the hills, the lights, the sky, wow, it's late, you need to start the barbecue – what do you want me to see, John?" Rodney answered, his voice high with frustration. His shoulders were tense and John could feel him shifting nervously.

"It's gas, Rodney – I'll start it when we're ready." John slid his hands down Rodney's arms and, lacing their fingers together, brought their hands up and rested them against Rodney's belly. "Tell me what you see."

Rodney stared into the window, his eyes focused on the indigo sky and the lights twinkling on in the hills below them.

"Closer," John murmured.

""I – oh," Rodney said, and stopped fidgeting the moment his eyes focused on the image of the two of them reflected in the window as if by a mirror, John's hands clasping his and John's mouth dropping down to press a kiss into the hollow of his shoulder.

"Tell me what you see," John said again, and this time Rodney answered him in a cascade of words: _us_, and _yours_, and _mine_, and _eyes_ and _mouth_ and _hair_, and _hands_ and _hands_ and _hands_ and _oh fuck, yes_, as John dropped their hands further down and pressed them over the growing bulge in the front of Rodney's jeans. "Tell me," he whispered, unbuttoning and unzipping and stroking Rodney's cock through the thin cotton of his shorts, "tell me," he insisted, unbuttoning his jeans, thrusting hard against Rodney's ass as Rodney watched them in the window and panted more words onto the glass.

When John shoved Rodney's boxers down and slipped his dick into the space between Rodney's thighs the words changed: _fuck_ and _more_ and _harder_ and _you, you, you_; and when he dragged his thumb through the moisture on the head of Rodney's cock and slid his palm up and down the shaft, faster, Rodney stared at their hands and said one more word, _us_.

Then the words changed again, lost consonants and became moans, shifting into the language that let John hold his own orgasm till Rodney shook and froze and finally came, in a hot rush of fluid over their linked hands. John let go then and thrust twice, hard, panting into Rodney's neck, pleasure like a bass line rolling through him. When he could breathe again he murmured "Rodney" into the damp skin beneath his lips, and lifted their hands to the window. He spread his fingers, lacing Rodney's into his, and flattened his palm against the reflection of the table and the lamp above it.

"Tell me," he said, needing to know that even if he, John Sheppard, had to express himself in power tools, Rodney McKay would understand.

Rodney turned his head and kissed him, open-mouthed, and then looked back at their reflection. He gave John an easy, uncomplicated grin, soft and sated around the edges, his eyes enormous and slightly hazy in the uneven glass. "You're _insane_," he said, his tone conversational.

John grinned back, hopelessly in love. "But I thought – "

"Of course, by insane I mean the love of my life. You do get that, don't you? If I just say it? I don't need to, oh, _build you a plane_ or something, do I?"

John looked at him, sincerely baffled, and ran one sticky hand through his hair. "Idiot," he said fondly. "I already knew – you made me dinner."

 

End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many many thanks to [](http://yin-again.livejournal.com/profile)[**yin_again**](http://yin-again.livejournal.com/) for the beta on this and the other three, and for her support. Of course, she started it with her story, [Devil You Know](http://yin-again.livejournal.com/261858.html).


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